Jerry Kaplan is widely known in the computer industry as a serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author. Most recently, he was co-chairman of Egghead.com, Inc. Previously, Mr. Kaplan served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of online auction company Onsale, Inc., which he co-founded in 1994.

Prior to Onsale, he was co-founder and chairman of GO Corporation, which developed PenPoint, a pen-based operating system. Mr. Kaplan wrote a best-selling book about his experiences at GO Corporation entitled "Startup--A Silicon Valley Adventure", published in May 1995 by Houghton-Mifflin.

Before founding GO, Mr. Kaplan was the principal technologist at Lotus Development Corporation, where he co-authored Lotus Agenda, the first personal information management software. In 1981, he co-founded Teknowledge, a public company specializing in artificial intelligence.

Mr. Kaplan received a Bachelor's degree in history and philosophy of science from the University of Chicago (1972), a Doctorate degree in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania (1979), and was a research associate in Computer Science at Stanford from 1979 to 1981.

Kaplan talks about companies having personalities that reflect the personalities of the founders. If you know Bill Gates, you know Microsoft, he says. Entrepreneurs should think about what personality they want the company to have and what personality they themselves have as the founder.

In companies, like children, personality is set early and expresses itself differently through the years but it doesn't change, says Kaplan. Entrepreneurs should establish values and culture early on and to remember that these values reflect the values of the founders, he adds.

Sales skills and very important and can mean many different things depending on what you are selling, says Kaplan. However, an entrepreneur doesn't necessarily need to have these skills, they should be able to attract people with these skills. The important skill for an entrepreneur is to know what you are good at and what you are not good at, he notes.

Kaplan talks about how roles change within a company when a transition from R&D happens. A vice president of sales when you are trying to get 3 test customers is not a good executive if you are planning to expand to different regions and have a large sales force, he says. You must keep in mind that when transitioning and scaling up, you might have to change management and get in the heavy hitters with experience, he adds.

Kaplan talks about the different kinds of risks (market, financial and technical) that an entrepreneur faces when starting a company. The trick is to get the risk out as soon as possible. If your product is not obvious to the market you must go out into the market and explain it to them, he says. He shares the example of TiVo.

Kaplan says that every idea is repeatedly proposed. Timing of an idea is very important and very difficult to call. This involves enabling technologies, customers and trends in the investment industry to come together. He gives examples from TiVo and Amazon. An idea does not stand alone independent of timing and the investment industry, he adds.

Kaplan is working on some really "wacky" things. According to him, the next big wave is going to be in Microsensor technology. This will enable people to use technology to do things that don't seem possible. He designed and built a home automation system which narrates whatever is happening. He has basically integrated information from multiple sensors.